Date:02/06/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/06/02/stories/2007060218880300.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Bangalore is a vital transit point for narcotics

Over the years, several people have been arrested and narcotics seized from them, writes K.V. Subramanya

SLEUTHS OF the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on May 24 raided a house in Bommanahalli on Hosur Road and seized heroin worth Rs. 10.54 crore that was meant for Sri Lanka. The NCB staff arrested Mohammed Arief Rehman (65) and Mansoor Hussain (30), a few minutes before they were to hand over the 10.54-kg heroin consignment to an agent.

The incident has again brought to the fore two things: Bangalore is still an important transit point in the international drug trafficking racket and the local police are unaware of the drug trafficking taking place here.

Over the years, sleuths from NCB and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence have arrested several people from Bangalore and seized from them narcotics substances that were meant for Sri Lanka.

Previous case

The previous such incident was in September 2005, when the NCB officials from Chennai busted an international drug trafficking racket by seizing 11 kg heroin here. They intercepted a truck carrying the narcotics substance on National Highway 4, off Madanayakanahalli, on the outskirts of Bangalore.

The narcotics substance was hidden under stones in the truck that was coming to Bangalore from North India. The entire consignment of heroin, estimated at Rs. 15 crore in the international market, was meant for delivery in Sri Lanka.

The Bangalore angle in the international drug trafficking came to light when NCB officials arrested two Sri Lankan nationals, P. Balakrishnan and his brother, P. Rajarathnam, and T. Solomon of Tuticorin in December 1999 and confiscated from them narcotics worth crores of rupees. The NCB officials intercepted the vehicle in which the three were travelling on National Highway 4 here.

In another raid in November 1999, the NCB staff arrested a man, again from Tuticorin, and his two associates from Bangalore and seized from them several crores worth of heroin.

Lankan connection

The arrest of the Sri Lankan nationals and the Tuticorin connection in the drug smuggling are significant.

In his work, "International and Regional Imperialism of Tamils," terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratne writes: "Tuticorin in coastal Tamil Nadu is the nucleus of narcotic and gold smuggling by the LTTE."

According to NCB sources, the LTTE cadres, through their sympathisers in India, smuggle narcotics by sea through the Palk Strait. Tuticorin is said to be a major centre through which the narcotics are smuggled into Sri Lanka.

Before reaching Tuticorin and some other coastal districts of Tamil Nadu, the narcotics pass through various cities across India and, Bangalore, is one among these important transit points, the sources said.

While the NCB and DRI staff have been cracking international drug trafficking cases here, Narcotic Cells of the City Crime Branch and Corps of Detectives (CoD) have not detected even one such major case.

A senior police official says it is difficult to break the drug trafficking network as it has several firewalls.

Besides, it requires a large intelligence network and resources, which the local police, unlike NCB and DRI, do not have, he says.